[Bug 1396379] Re: installer uses first EFI system partition found even when directed otherwise

[Brian F]

This bug is not an Ubuntu installer problem or a Debian installer
problem. It is 100% a Grub problem. Unbelievable it has gone on this
long.

You can recreate this problem in other ways than the OS installers:
>From an installed distro of your choice, simply create an ESP and a Linux partition on a thumb drive. Create the file systems and mount the partitions. Then debootstrap your distro to the thumb drive. Chroot into it, customize the hell out of it. Finally apt-get install the EFI version of grub, run grub-install (carefully using the switches to install to the ESP on the thumb drive). Exit the chroot. Although everything looks like it worked, it didn't. Remove the thumb drive, and if you reboot your host computer you created the thumb drive with you'll notice that your boot sector has been overwritten.

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Title:
  installer uses first EFI system partition found even when directed
  otherwise

Status in grub-efi-amd64-signed package in Ubuntu:
  Confirmed
Status in ubiquity package in Ubuntu:
  Confirmed

Bug description:
  (k)ubuntu 14.04.1
  package version: 2.02~beta2-9ubuntu1

  i installed ubuntu on my external hard disk, where i also have a previously installed fedora system. i also have a windows
  (efi-booted) system in the internal hard disk.

  at install time via ubiquity i get all grub configuration files in the first EFI-labelled partition (i.e. /dev/sda2 in my case) instead of the one i selected (/dev/sdb1).
  later i changed my fstab mounting /boot/efi on /dev/sdb1 and tried to reinstall grub package (apt-get install --reinstall grub-efi-amd64); now all grub configuration files are in the rigt place, but booting from the external hard disk still shows the fedora grub installation, while selectin the internal hard disk from the bios menu shows a submenu listing ubuntu and windows.
  explicitly installing grub in the correct disk (grub-install /dev/sdb; grub-mkconfig -o /boot/efi/EFI/ubuntu/grub.cfg) has no effect, nor it has running efibootmgr (efibootmgr -c --disk /dev/sdb --part 1).

  expected results: grub shoud have been installed in the disk/partition i chose;
  actual results: ubuntu always chooses the first disk to install grub on.

  Note that this is not just about the dummy grub install location
  selector that is not used in EFI mode, but configuring one partition
  as do not use, and the other as ESP in the manual partitioning screen.

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